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You know what there is to do in January at this latitude? Not bloody much. Or a whole bloody lot, if you like to cook and just got a big-ass new TV. The third pot of National Soup Month soup (cream of cauliflower) is in progress on the stove, and I’ve been watching movies.

The soup report comes later. For now, two flicks that I enjoyed.

First, “The Queen of Versailles,” which is absolutely worth a use of your Netflix or iTunes account (or DVD rental, for you geezers). The story of David and Jackie Siegel, two of the nouveau-est of the nouveau riche, how they made it and how they lost it (although they still retain quite a bit) arouses my favorite movie emotion — mixed feelings.

The story begins as the account of how this couple set out to build the largest private home (under one roof, a qualification everyone seems to make, so I’ll make it here) in the country, in superclassy Orlando. They took as their inspiration the French palace of Louis XIV, although David Siegel is pretty upfront that the real design grandaddy was “the top three floors of the Paris,” i.e., the hotel in Las Vegas. Vegas is also where the Siegel wealth is undergoing an aggressive expansion, the latest of his time-share resorts “in a beautiful tower of blue glass.” I will credit the Siegels for affording the filmmakers a great deal of access to the sausage-making, not only of their family life but also of their business empire — we see rubes pulled in from their Strip-strolling to hear the pitch for their own little fraction of a piece of Vegas suite life. We also see the sales-staff whoop-it-up meeting, where sellers are told they are “saving lives” by peddling vacations.

But mostly we see the Siegels — he, a septuagenarian by turns smiling-and-indulgent and crabby-and-grouchy, and she, a long-legged former beauty queen (of the Mrs. Florida, not Miss, variety) with one of the most preposterous set of fake knockers you’ll see outside of a strip club. (She loves to serve them up in strapless and peek-a-boo styles, like cheese balls.) Oh, and their eight children and multiple dogs — one of the latter running around the house, two former ones preserved through taxidermy.

Now. Any household with eight children is going to have a default setting of Chaos, even with the squadron of staff the couple employs to help them live their lives, but good lord, these people make the Nall/Derringer house look like Downton Abbey. Piles of crap are everywhere, the dog poops on the carpet, the meals arrive in bags emblazoned with the Golden Arches. They have so much stuff — and an inability to part with much of it, even as Jackie admit she shops a little compulsively and doesn’t really know what, exactly, she has at any moment — they have already filled their 25,000 square foot house. Versailles, as planned, will come close to 100,000. So, you know (and I loved this part, because I’ve heard some version of it so many times in my own life), they need that bigger house.

Well, you can guess what happens. The financial crisis happens and the subprime timeshare crap they’re peddling goes into the toilet, down the sewer and out to sea, taking with it most of the Siegels’ fortune. The cash flow necessary to keep everything oiled is suddenly gone, work on Versailles is abandoned and the compulsive spenders learn how just regular old rich people live; they keep their big existing house, but have to lay off a few of the Filipino nannies and housekeepers, start flying commercial and enroll their children in public schools.

It’s hard to dislike Jackie Siegel, cheese-ball boobs and all. She seems brighter than she lets on, and she does have an inner toughness that keeps her smiling through her financial calamities. She’s not so bright that she doesn’t see the preposterousness in her pout that “the bank got us hooked on cheap money and then took it away,” as though the entire Siegel empire isn’t predicated on doing the exact same thing to those Vegas tourists. Her spending does extend to a childhood friend, whom she sends $5,000 in a fruitless attempt to keep her house out of foreclosure, and they support lots of charities. When she gets one of those chemical peels that leaves her skin looking like she witnessed a nuclear blast, and her husband tells her to get out of his office because he doesn’t want to look at it, she frankly states she’s worried about being traded in for a newer model. But the story ends, as they so often do, without a firm resolution. They’re still married, they’re still rich and they don’t seem to have learned much. Just like real life.

The other was a much darker ride — “Big Fan,” starring Patton Oswalt as the world’s No. 1 New York Giants fan, with all that implies. At 35, he works the night shift in a parking garage, writing the script for his daily call to a sports-talk radio station, where he taunts a Philadelphia Eagles superfan. He apparently wants nothing more than this life of meaningless work and sports obsession. When he and his only friend, Sal, see a star Giants running back filling up his SUV on Staten Island one night, they impulsively follow him, and stuff happens.

If you only think of Patton Oswalt as the voice of Remy the rat in “Ratatouille,” prepare for a different side. Really well-acted and written.

Which, I suppose, brings me to today’s question for the room: Who should I root for — nay, for whom shall I root in tonight’s BCS game? How do you pick a lesser evil among the good ol’ boys of the SEC and that uniquely irritating brand of fan known as the Domer? Southern football worship vs. all that Ronald Reagan touchdown Jesus crap? I’ll leave it up to you.

From last week, but worth the read: Kevin Drum on environmental lead as a crime-rate driver. Don’t be put off by the fact it’s in Mother Jones — it’s interesting and worth your time.

And so the first full week of the year begins. It will feel very long, I fear. Let’s survive it together.

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59 responses to “Couch movies.”

MaryRC said on January 7, 2013 at 2:10 am

I’m looking forward to seeing “The Fan” after seeing Patton Oswalt in a movie with Charlize Theron called “Young Adult”. He was terrific. I didn’t recognize him until halfway through as one of the sidekicks on that Kevin James sitcom — what a waste of his talent that was, although I guess it paid the rent. I like him on Twitter too.

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Brandon said on January 7, 2013 at 2:27 am

Manti Te`o is on the Notre Dame team. I’m from Hawaii, so it speaks for itself.

From last week, but worth the read: Kevin Drum on environmental lead as a crime-rate driver. Don’t be put off by the fact it’s in Mother Jones — it’s interesting and worth your time.

I don’t think anyone here is put off by the article’s appearance in Mother Jones, unless they’re fans of The Progressive or In These Times or think MoJo treated Michael Moore like crap.

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Sherri said on January 7, 2013 at 2:28 am

Always root against Notre Dame. If they win the BCS, they’ll be insufferable. After all, despite not being all that good for a number of years, Notre Dame still has a TV contract with NBC to televise all their football games.

Plus, we’ll have to listen to the nonsense about Notre Dame “doing it the right way,” and ignore the girl who committed suicide after ND slowfooted a sexual assault allegation against a football player.

If you’re an Amazon Prime member, “The Queen of Versailles” is free to stream for Prime members.

Brandon, I almost didn’t read it last week myself because of the “Mother Jones” tag, but I saw Kevin Drum’s name and thought “well, let’s see.” And as part of the small conservative caucus here in the pub, I can say I’ve been posting and e-mailing this to friends and work associates, always with the caveat “don’t let the source keep you from reading it.” One of our juvenile court magistrates did so with that encouragement, and he’s deeply disturbed and looking hard for more info (and some sense of what to do if this is a major behavioral driver).

It would be as if there was a well-researched, carefully built-up case for an unexpected issue hiding in plain sight that was first unveiled on a FoxNews website. Yes, yes, let the humor as to that possibility begin. But “Mother Jones” is so often writing from the classic point of view “meteorite to strike earth, women and minorities hardest hit” that folks not so terribly to the right tend to shrug off their headlines. Drum (and David Corn) are excellent journalists regardless.

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JWfromNJ said on January 7, 2013 at 7:45 am

Patton Oswalt is joining the cast of HBO’s “The Newsroom” as ACN’s VP for Human Resources. He is a pretty talented guy, I also like Young Adult.

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beb said on January 7, 2013 at 7:46 am

Not reading an article because it appears in Mother Jones is like not reading Matt Tiabbi because he appears in Rolling Stone. Something to keep in mind with all this is that economist Steven Levitt makes the same case for abortion as the reason for the decline in violent crimes. And not much is being said about the effect welfare has had on crime due to its ability to bring some stability to the lives of those most likely to become involved in crime. And if lead were involved I would think that it would also correlation to declines in biochemical disorders like autism and and allergies, but those seem to be rising as violence goes down.

As someone raised in the shadow of Norte Dame I, of course, always root for the other team.

Re: welfare costs vs. prison costs – yes, beb, and for anyone (of which there are few here, I know) who thinks the reason welfare programs are cost effective only because we coddle prison inmates, here’s a shot taken by a friend/ministry colleague in his prison ministry work that should be informative.

I watched “Queen of Versailles” on Christmas Day on my new Kindle Fire after you mentioned it here a couple of weeks ago – utterly fascinating and I thought about it for days afterward. And I’m glad I clicked through to read the lead article. I had automatically assumed lead paint, which is still a huge problem in Baltimore City, but the gasoline theory works for me, too. Baltimore was briefly mentioned at the end of the article and I definitely think the theory would warrant further investigation.

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Julie Robinson said on January 7, 2013 at 8:37 am

We watched Looper. Meh. Glad we didn’t pay theater prices.

The correct answer to the BCS question is to cheer for the IU Hoosiers against Penn State in hoops.

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alex said on January 7, 2013 at 8:45 am

I think MoJo wants you to eat its cookies or it won’t show you the content. My settings must be goofed up, or maybe it doesn’t like my ad blocker app. So maybe I’ll try getting back to Kevin Drum another time.

There have been ideas floated over the years that cockroaches and rodent waste materials may be responsible for the drastic rise in juvenile asthma versus formaldehyde and other off-gases from pressboard cabinets and synthetic floor coverings. There are people who’ve argued that fibromyalgia isn’t a faddish new name for hypochondriasis but a syndrome coinciding with the presence Epstein-Barr virus antibodies. There have been arguments that breast cancer is caused by carcinogenic elements in household cleaners that bond with estrogen to form new chemical compounds that reside in breast tissue. The world greeted all of these with a yawn and you don’t hear much about them anymore.

I’m curious to see what evidence Kevin Drum is citing. Should be interesting.

I think the tetraethyl lead correlation is pretty strong, but there are too many people who make money whoring science denial to divert money from their beloved punitive (or come to papa Jeebus) systems to address a public health issue.
Funny that they don’t accept science until someone has to carve the accumulated hog fat out of their heart, remove a lobe of a lung, or blast limestone formations out of their urinary tracts.
But the Right will always be there to encourage the poors to compensate for neurological damage from environmental toxins through self criticism or prayer.

It’s funny reading about “America’s Mayor” Rudy Giuliani and Chief Bratton. Rudy followed that hire up by appointing “made guy” Bernie Kerik. Oh, and dressing in drag. And moving his mistress into Gracie Mansion while he still lived there with his wife. Me, I liked the old Times Square. Also found this sentence mildly amusing:

In the early ’90s, these researchers proposed, the children of CrackGen switched to marijuana, choosing a less violent and more law-abiding lifestyle.

The physiological effects of environmental lead on human beings is a done deal as far as proof is concerned, so, for me, the corellative data Drum points to seem pretty convincing to me. And Jeff can scoff about >i>meteorite to strike earth, women and minorities hardest hit if he likes, but in modern America, somehow that will always be true. Did America’s richest rich people feel the effects of the recession the way poor minorities and women did? They did not, aside from those noveau riche Orlando Hillbillies types with their stately pleasure domes on leveraged piles of cash.

Cooz, the idea that GOP compassion for people with problems or interest in addressing those problems through policy only arises when those problems land on their doorstep came up recently in remarks made by Sen. Mark Kirkre the treatment he received after a severe stroke. In particular, he noted that Medicaid would have paid for only eleven PT treatments, far fewer than the number he received to reach a level of rehabilitation that is impressive, but, I’m sure, not what he had hoped. (His left arm is pretty much useless. His left leg is damaged, and he walks with difficulty using a cane. The vision in his left eye is impaired.)

Kirk seems like a decent guy, and it’s great that he realized how different his circumstances were from those of many less advantaged people. He says he plans to pursue the issue now that he is back at work.* But should it take a massive medical trauma for a senator to question the adequacy of healthcare provided in public programs? There are many other examples of legislators who “got religion” when touched by some personal trauma. I dunno. Maybe we should be grateful for those who do see the political implications of their difficulties.

*It’s worth noting that another way in which Kirk’s situation differed from that of most Americans was that he was able to take as much time as he needed to return to work without fear of losing either his job or his health insurance.

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Bitter Scribe said on January 7, 2013 at 10:44 am

Notre Dame and its fans are annoying, yes, but I’ll be rooting for them tonight because 1) annoying or not, they really have suffered a long time and 2) I am soooooo sick of the SEC winning everything.

Patton Oswalt is always fun. He tore up the screen in a guest appearance on “Burn Notice.”

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Deborah said on January 7, 2013 at 10:44 am

Senator Kirk had gone for rehab to the Rehab Institute of Chicago a few blocks from where we live. It is rated very high maybe the best. The company I retired from is designing a new building for them and I did some brainstorming for it. It’s a very, very impressive place, Kirk is really lucky to have gone there. He probably is still going there for ongoing therapy.

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MichaelG said on January 7, 2013 at 10:56 am

So Alabama isn’t insufferable? I noted yesterday that my preference would be for both to lose. I can’t stand either one of them.

That prison picture that MMJeff posted was taken at a California reception center. I can’t tell which one. The orange jump suits are the give away. Those guys will all be somewhere else pretty soon.

Jolene; My wife was reading some of Kirk’s description of his encounter with three angels. I’ve read enough Northrop Frye and dropped enough acid to know that mythos can shape an individual’s response to trauma, but three angels?
Sounds too much like a damn Louvin Brothers song if you ask me.

I should have tried that when I was trying to get a day off from work. “There was three angels around my bed. One of ’em was going after lucifer with a T-ball bat, and the other two tole me I needed a holiday. Gimme.”

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Kirk said on January 7, 2013 at 11:24 am

Much as I hate Notre Dame (I even rooted for Ohio State to beat the Irish a couple of times, and I deeply loathe the Buckeyes and the disease they represent), I have this feeling that I’ll be pulling for the Domers to chop down Bama tonight, largely for the reasons cited above by Bitter Scribe.

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Prospero said on January 7, 2013 at 11:27 am

Patton Oswalt was very good on Burn Notice, the last two hours of which were the most electrifying ever of that show, which is saying a lot.

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nancy said on January 7, 2013 at 11:27 am

I just discovered the Louvin Brothers in recent months; a record-producer friend of mine likes to post their videos on Facebook. Wow. Proof you should always get out of bed in the morning, because you never know what you’re going to learn today.

Yeah man. The Everly brothers are like the Louvin Brothers without that bigass wet blanket.
Wasn’t one of them a career criminal or something?

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nancy said on January 7, 2013 at 11:40 am

Wikipedia sez:

Their songs were heavily influenced by their Baptist faith and warned against sin.[citation needed] Ira Louvin was notorious for his drinking, womanizing, and short temper.[2] He was married four times; his third wife Faye shot him four times in the chest and twice in the hand after he allegedly beat her.[3] Although seriously injured, he survived. When performing and drinking, Ira would sometimes become angry enough on stage to smash his mandolin; otherwise his style was heavily influenced by Bill Monroe.

Here you go
Their songs were heavily influenced by their Baptist faith and warned against sin.[citation needed] Ira Louvin was notorious for his drinking, womanizing, and short temper.[2] He was married four times; his third wife Faye shot him four times in the chest and twice in the hand after he allegedly beat her.[3] Although seriously injured, he survived. When performing and drinking, Ira would sometimes become angry enough on stage to smash his mandolin; otherwise his style was heavily influenced by Bill Monroe.
I didn’t know Bill Monroe drank.

The football game tonight? I’m with Michael G, hoping for an earthquake to swallow the stadium. I happened to watch ND’s alleged victory over Pitt. Nice officiating refs. Bama played W. Carolina. The only thing more obnoxious in college football this year is the assholes complaining about Ohio State not being in the NCG. Here’s a column by Bill Plaschke, a worse writer than Mitch Albom, that perfectly encapsulates everything detestable about ND:

A great song. I believe this was written by Huddie Leadbetter. Curt Cobain did an amazing version on Unplugged and there is also a very good version by Long John Baldry. The Louvin’s version eschews the minor 7th chording on the second hales of the two verse lines which makes the song much less spooky and menacing than Baldry’s or Cobain’s take. It’s also surprising nobody in the song gets murdered, it being Appalachia and all.

That last sentence re the Louvin Brothers is fantastic. It reminds me of what is perhaps my all-time favorite sentence, which comes from a booklet made up for an all-school reunion of the tiny high school I attended way back in 1976. (I remember this because of a connection to the bicentennial.) The sentence refers to a stereotypical bachelor farmer. It goes: Darwin is single and has had open heart surgery.

Is that perfect or what?

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Prospero said on January 7, 2013 at 11:59 am

Dolly Parton also did Where Did You Sleep, similarly to the Louvin Bros. version (It really fits her vocal style perfectly):

And the Baldry version is done as call and response, with Maggie Bell, the Scottish Janis Joplin. The arrangement is heavy on resonator guitar and mandolin. Very good cut.

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Basset said on January 7, 2013 at 12:07 pm

For those just becoming aware of the Louvins, I would recommend “Living’… damn phone insists on autofilling the G… Anyway, a really good collection of cover versions from 2003, “livin, lovin, losin – songs of the Louvin Brothers,” with a beautiful Alison Krauss and James Taylor take on “how’s the world treating you.” that, or the first two Emmylou Harris albums.

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Jakash said on January 7, 2013 at 12:50 pm

Thumbs up for Bitter Scribe and Kirk. Though I can’t imagine that a whole lot of ND haters care too much about the Scribe’s first point, there’s a lot to be said for his second. C’mon, people — if nothing else, it’s the North vs. the South! ND deserves to be beaten up for its hypocrisy in not living up to its own “standards” when it comes to things like that rape case, but if we were to start making a list of all the flaws of the various bowl teams’ programs over the years, there wouldn’t be time for any games.

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Kirk said on January 7, 2013 at 1:05 pm

Basset is right; that Louvin tribute album is most excellent. My favorite is the closer: Pam Tillis, Johnny Cash and the Jordanaires doing “Keep Your Eyes on Jesus.”

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DellaDash said on January 7, 2013 at 1:20 pm

I, too, couldn’t help but like Mrs Queen of Versailles, even though everything about her is just so ALIEN. Also mildly wondered if that perpetual smile might be floating on top of a cocktail of perscriptions, although she seemed to be pretty much of an open book.

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annie said on January 7, 2013 at 3:06 pm

ND and Alabama — only thing that would make it worse is if a military school could somehow play with them.

MichaelG, the lock-up depicted was in Florida, but we use the same jumpsuits – color, cut, whole 9 yards.

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alex said on January 7, 2013 at 3:20 pm

Finally got to read Kevin Drum and those are some mighty impressive findings. I remember loving the smell of leaded gasoline and the visual illusion of the horizon melting when seen through its vapors. Why is it that the things that pleasure the senses are always bad for you?

Great review of the Queen of Versailles. Love being able to download films like this on Netflix.

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alex said on January 7, 2013 at 4:23 pm

California Dept. of Corrections?

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alex said on January 7, 2013 at 4:26 pm

Funny, that and the Onion piece on copy editors called to mind an old memory. When I worked as a copy editor in a publishing house, we had intramural volleyball teams. The copy editors were known as The Department of Corrections.

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Scout said on January 7, 2013 at 4:55 pm

We watched Queen of Versailles over the weekend too. I remember seeing trailers for it at our art house theater and thinking it looked interesting. The review here was picture perfect, capturing everything I felt about it as I was watching. Although Jackie sometimes came across as a caricature of nouveau riche, there was something genuine there that made me sympathize with her, despite all the tacky 1% crap.

I was just listening to a clip of Miss Lindsay Graham having the vapors over the Hagel nomination. Girlfriend, please! What a drama queen.

I bought the book Tenth of December, by George Saunders, today after the write up in the NYT Magazine that I read on the plane back to Chicago, how could I not. Read the first story, now I’m going to have to go back and read everything he’s written. Somehow I missed knowing about him and his work. I think I’ve probably read some of his stories in the New Yorker but didn’t know it. I also read an interview in Slate today with Saunders and his editor. Loved his response about why he hasn’t written a (another?) novel, “good news that I’m progressing; bad news that life is short and art is long.”

Deborah, I had the same impulse to get the George Saunders books after reading that review. The idiot GOPer’s probem with Hagel, aside from the fact he was nominated by President Obama, is that he is not a sufficiently staunch defender of Israel. By which I think they mean, he doesn’t think it’s a good idea for American Congresspeople to vote as directed by AIPAC, nor to let Mossad run rampant in the US and do shit like steal fissionable material to share with the South African DeKlerk government.

It always struck me as anomalous that Little Lindsay Fauntleroy can get elected over and over in good ol’ boy SC.

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Prospero said on January 7, 2013 at 6:34 pm

Little Lindsay is also up in arms that Hagel didn’t support the “surge” in Iraq. Well, Senator Graham, the “surge” was a fraud. Whatever good it accomplished was effected by transferring American taxpayers’ cash to Sunni warlords to buy friends and influence people, you dumbass:

Good movie: Fans of Winter’s Bone should check The Poker House for free on Netflix. A good movie.

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Prospero said on January 7, 2013 at 8:28 pm

Holy shit, Brent Hamburger and Herby. The announcing equivalent of Albom and Lupica. I want to say right now, before the KO. If this game ever comes down to a controversial official’s call, ND has it wrapped up. No joke, they lost that Pitt game and got rescued.

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Prospero said on January 7, 2013 at 8:52 pm

Hamburger rooting for ND on the punt return. Returner called a fair catch, without a doubt. Claiming the ND gunner didn’t make contact is willing suspension of disbelief worthy of William Faulkner. Pure bullshit.

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Bitter Scribe said on January 7, 2013 at 10:18 pm

28-0 Tide at the half.

If the Irish keep playing like this…oh, well, at least they didn’t give their fans any false hope.

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Bitter Scribe said on January 7, 2013 at 10:20 pm

Prosporo: He didn’t actually make contact, but he got close enough to be called for the penalty, as the old guy Musberger consulted with said. (Notice how Kirk clammed up after that.)

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Sherri said on January 7, 2013 at 10:25 pm

You’d think Musberger would know that you don’t have to make contact for interference to be called.

Meanwhile, it looks like Mike Shanahan should win the Dumbest Coach of the Year Award, for continuing to play a clearly gimpy RGIII until he ripped up his knee. I’m glad the Seahawks won, but it was painful to watch RGIII limping around out there, and then to see the inevitable happen…

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Kirk said on January 7, 2013 at 11:04 pm

Sure the game sucks, but it’s nothing that can’t be rescued by extremely low-stakes gambling. The 5 and the 7 at the end of the third quarter just won me 75 bucks.

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Sherri said on January 7, 2013 at 11:11 pm

I would have liked to have seen either Oregon or Stanford play Bama. I think Bama beats either one of them, but the game would have been more interesting. Notre Dame and Kansas State never really belonged in the national championship discussion.